Tuesday, March 31, 2009

After some depression in activity, thought, and sense of purpose, I’m ready to charge again. I’ve been carrying along in my endeavors sluggishly, and have been pretty well downtrodden lately; I’m tired of the feeling. So I’ve re-imagined my purpose and my motivation and I’ve resolved to be proactive despite the deep emotional costs associated with the isolation, indifference, rejection, combativeness, disapproval, resistance, and otherwise burdening hindrances and dissociation of relatedness with others. I know that in allowing myself to be defeated, I am allowing the vision, principles, purpose, and possibilities for which I work to create and progress, and to establish and maintain, to be defeated in some way as well, by that same indifference and rejection, and, “it’s not worth it” mentality. Instead, I promote that mentality. And that is something with which I have never intended to sympathize.

I’ve made quite a bit of progress in school, but now that my tuition assistance is used up, I think I will concentrate on strengthening family and personal relationships for a while. I’ll still be reading and studying, and taking some CLEP and DANTES exams for college credit. I just finished a philosophy class, which I thoroughly enjoyed, despite the demands and deadlines which were difficult to meet due to obligations at work, and my own recent depression. I have one more class about physical training.

I’ve been really starting to rethink going into sports medicine. While it could prove to be lucrative (or could prove to not be), I don’t believe that I would be best fulfilled in my capacities by treating injuries and helping people to recover from them, even if some of my work would be in research or in exercise and training instruction. I have become very interested in the fields of evolutionary and molecular biology and genetics, as well as neurology and psychology. I wonder how many strings I might be able to tie together there, but seeing as how medicine (and all science, really) is highly specialized, I know I have a lot of work ahead of me if I want to attempt to connect those dots. Philosophy is to be a pervasive part of my life as well. I see it as an extension of science, in a way. Philosophy acts as the antennae of science, always feeling for new possible paths, determining hypotheses and pointing the direction. Science then determines the validity then by going in that direction, and practically testing it. They rely on and give feedback to each-other in that sense, like the relationship of intuition and reason. They are highly complementary, and perhaps absurd without one another, even though many people consider them to be conflicting or wholly and independently distinct.

In my philosophy class, my professor expressed some sentiment about me being a teacher’s assistant. Even though this online school does not allow this, I was excited at the idea of being able to work with and gain extra knowledge from a knowledgeable philosopher. I told him that I’d like to help do research projects or papers, or assist in whatever way possible, unofficially, but I haven’t received a response yet. I will check on that tomorrow as well.

The next thing I want to accomplish with my family is a collective mission statement. I know I have been difficult for them to deal with lately, and I will need to talk to them all about this before we can move forward with anything. I think that we have made a lot of progress lately, especially Liz with her increasing awareness and handling of her financial responsibility. But, I want to be involved in more activities with the Kids. I’ve scheduled some times for us to go out, both on family events and with just me and one of them at a time. Without school being so demanding of my time, I will be better able to do all that.

Another thing that helps me is to write, and doing it more often helps keep me focused and grounded in my purpose. I’ve been neglecting to write in my blogs or journals, or anything otherwise introspective other than papers for school. I started listen to another book, The New Psycho-Cybernetics by Maxwell Maltz M.D. It has sparked my interest in personal development and psychology again.

I get angry when I look back and see how I’ve allowed my analysis of other people and their treatment of me, and my emotions surrounding that, to depress my drive and sense of myself—to affect my self-image. I don’t know if there is a more appropriate, or more effective response that to channel that energy into productivity. I want to think of myself as I did before this great decline in self-confidence and determination, but still take some morsel of maturity out of it. Before, I was unstoppable—and then I stopped being that. So I have to stop letting things stop me again, but first, I have to know myself to be every bit, if not more, powerful and unstoppable as I was before I gave up. I have told myself that these leaders here, the people in authority positions above me, are unreliable, lacking integrity, and destructive. Even if it is so, and in most cases I very much believe it is, I cannot allow it to destroy me, even if that is its one and only purpose. I have to know, like I have always known, that I am stronger, more intelligent, more capable, more motivated, more right, and most importantly, more determined than they can ever be, in their defeated states of angst, and in their parasitic behaviors, and anxious quests for recognition and value. If they would take my value from me, and I would show them that their way is the wrong way, there is no way for me to do it by refusing to produce. Then I become worthless to them and to myself. This is no solution. If I could destroy their blood sucking minds, relinquish them of their power, reveal and alter or amputate their behavior, or otherwise eliminate their threat and the burden they place on me, I would. But until I can gain position to do that, I can only press on while they benefit from me.

Should it really be a part of my mission to destroy or defeat them?

Or should I only want to create what I can, and contribute as much as I can, rather than wasting my time with lesser humans?

Or… should I undertake it to help them?